Japanese gang war feared as largest yakuza syndicate splits

Thousands of Yamaguchi-gumi
members form new crime organisation at weekend after being kicked out for
disloyalty

Shinobu Tsukasa, leader of Japan’s largest
‘yakuza’ gang the Yamaguchi-gumi, at Kobe station after being released from
prison. Photograph: The Asahi Shimbun/via Getty Images

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Rebel gangsters from Japan’s
biggest organised crime group have formed abreakaway group, in a rare schism
that police have warned could lead to violent conflict between rival mobs.

Thousands of members of the
Yamaguchi-gumi officially formed a new gang at the weekend, Japanese media
reports said on Monday, after they were expelled for disloyalty towards the
parent group’s boss, Shinobu Tsukasa.

Japanese media said the new group
would be led by Kunio Inoue, the 67-year-old head of the Yamaken-gumi, a gang
with about 2,000 members that is also based in the western port city of Kobe.

Kyodo News said the new gang would call itself
the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi and continue to use the gang’s logo – moves likely to
heighten discord between the two groups.

The new organisation will have
about 3,000 members – far fewer than the Yamaguchi-gumi, whose membership
totals about 23,400, accounting for just under half of Japan’s gangster
population.

Founded in Kobe by a former
fisherman in 1915, the Yamaguchi-gumi now operates in all but three of Japan’s
47 prefectures. It is highly dependent on traditional cash cows such as drug
trafficking, loan sharking and protection rackets, but in recent years it has
engaged in financial scams and other white-collar crime.

Last year, Fortune magazine said
the organisation was worth $80bn (£32bn), making it the wealthiest organised
crime group in the world. By contrast, Sinaloa, Mexico’s largest drug cartel,
was worth $3bn.

Rumours last month that the
Yamaguchi-gumi was to mark its 100th anniversary by severing ties with 13 of
its 72 factions prompted a police warning of a potentially violent power
struggle, as former associates settle old scores and vie for territory.

Police are in a state of
heightened alert, patrolling Yamaguchi-gumi offices and members’ homes and
using gang sources to establish who is in and out of favour with the
syndicate’s leadership.

The rift was fomented by
criticism that Tsukasa,who became the Yamaguchi-gumi’s sixth leader a decade
ago, was giving preferable treatment to members of the Kodo-kai, a Nagoya-based
affiliate he founded in 1984.

The 73-year-old, who also goes by
the name Kenichi Shinoda, was released from prison in April 2011 after serving
a six-year sentence for firearms possession.

Under his leadership, the
Yamaguchi-gumi has reportedly meted out harsh disciplinary measures against
affiliated gang leaders who disobey orders or who fail to pay the monthly
membership fee of about 1m yen (£5,500).

Tsukasa, who spent 13 years in
prison for killing a rival with a samurai sword in the 1970s, also wants the
Kodo-kai to expand its influence in Tokyo and other parts of eastern Japan,
angering associates in the Yamaguchi-gumi’s traditional base in the west of the
country.

Reports said he sparked anger
after suggesting that the Yamaguchi-gumi’s headquarters should be moved from
Kobe to Nagoya.

Police officials say they fear a
repeat of the bloodshed that followed a similar split in 1984. Over the next
three years, at least 25 people died, more than 70 were injured – including
three with no gang ties – and police made hundreds of arrests.

While Japan’s underworld has been
weakened by tougher anti-crime measures and the freezing of overseas assets,
police have not ruled out another round of violence, while government spokesman
Yoshihide Suga said the split was an opportunity to further weaken the crime
syndicates’ grip on Japanese society.

In a rare interview in 2011, Tsukasa claimed
that anti-yakuza crackdowns could end up backfiring, since groups such as the
Yamaguchi-gumi provided many young Japanese with a moral code.

“If the Yamaguchi-gumi were to
disband, public order would probably worsen,” he told the Sankei newspaper. “I
know it may be hard to believe, but I am protecting Yamaguchi-gumi in order to
lose the violent groups.”

Japanese media sensed public
attitudes were hardening towards the yakuza, in contrast to previous years in
which gangs were tolerated as long as they did not target ordinary citizens.

“The split offers a good
opportunity for police to tighten their crackdown on the syndicate to weaken
its power,” the Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial. The paper said police
should “take all possible measures, including arresting senior members, to put
the group out of business once and for all”.